The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-10-01
1.-THE APOSTLE OF THE LOW
LANDS"

LANDS"
More than twelve hundred years ago
there we're some log RATS on the river
Tyne, In the northern part of England.
The RATS we're being hoated down to the
mouth of the river, where some missiona-
ries hoped to build home for themselves;
but in some way the log RATS became
unmanageable, and while the missionaries
we're still on them we're swept out through
the river-mouth to sea.
There we're people on the shore, and we
should have thought that they would have
taken boats and gone to the help of those
missionaries at once, but this happened
in the days when the people of Northum.
bria, though calling themselves Chris
tians, yet were really heather at heart,
and so these men on shore, as they saw
the misfortune of the missionaries, cried
out: "Let nobody pray for them, let no.
body pity these men who have taken
away from us our old Worship
And what was this cold worship"
to which these heathen were 50 at
tached? 1t was the wo' ship of the cruel
war, god Wooden, and OF many less sr
gods. No wonder tines people, believ-
ing as they did that their god delighted
in multitudes of cruel acts, had become
cruel themselves and rejoiced to see men
borne away to suffer amid the currents
and fogs of the North Sea.
These people had accepted Christianity
in name, because their "thegns" had
said that they must do 80. The word
"thegn," meant servant" The people
used to speak OF "dish-thegns" and
"horse-thegns." The thegns who had
power were servants of the king, but the
rulers of the common people.
But, however much the thegns might
command the people of Northumbria 70
become Christians, such commands did
no good because the thegns had no
power to change the peoples hearts. So
whenever any trouble came upon the
Christian missionaries the heather al
ways said it was sent because of the
anger of the old gods.
But there was a person who was to
teach the Northumbrisns the true way.
He was named Cuthbert or Guthbert
which meant "worthy OF God"
He was shepherd lad and tended his
flock on the high, bleak uplands. There
in the night he watched the meteors
shine in the darkness. To this boy shep-
herd, as to those men who, six hundred
years before "kept their hocks by night
in Judean fields, came the knowledge of
ga Saviour which is Christ the LORD"
Like the shepherd king of Israel, Outh-
bert might have said that the Lord "took
him from the sheep folds"
A few Irish missionaries had come
from L'pdlsfarne, and we're living in
some log houses in the wilderness. To
these men Cuthbert went. They became
his teachers and at last he almost out
stripped them in his missionary zeal for
the people Of the surrounding country.
He went out among the men of North
umbria and preached to them.
Heknew their language and could more
easily make himself understood than
could the Irish missionaries. Into the
lonely little villages Of the mountains
where other missionaries could not go;
into boggy tracks where danger lurked
and where travellers always carried spears
to defend themselves with; into wide des-
olate tracts Of country that bad only here
and there some clusters Of wooden huts,
Outhbert went The poor had the gos-